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This afternoon we met for our Pete the Cat Party! I read Pete the Cat's 4 Groovy Buttons and Pete the Cat and the Bad Banana. Then we played a game. On the recording The Big Silly with Mr. Eric (Litwin), Eric reads Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes. I grabbed construction paper in white, red, blue, and brown and just threw them willy nilly on the floor. I had everyone start on a white paper. Honestly, the kids know this story by heart, so it was super fun. I told them that silly things were about to happen to Pete's shoes, and they had only a few seconds to jump to the correct color or they would have to come up front and sing the song with Miss Kristie.
After the game we did a guided Pete the Cat drawing exercise. They enjoyed that way more than I thought they would and spent 20 minutes coloring in their pictures and/or adding items to the picture. Crafts are kind of beat lately. I'm not sure why, but I'm not going to kill myself making a craft no one wants to make…

Everything I read before doing this program seemed as though the party should not last longer than 25 minutes. I think the kids could have danced for waaaaay longer than that. Altogether, with book and music it was 35 minutes long, but I will shoot for 45 next time.

How it went:

Set up- I created the playlist days ahead of time. Narrowing down the songs was easy, pacing them (fast, medium, slow) was MUCH harder. I didn't want to tire everyone out or make them bored. I went for balance.

We began with rules and a book.
Now, I hate rules, but I wanted to stress that this was a party and not a class- so if Little Suzie wandered out of the rectangle, no big deal. If Little Steve refused to hand in his egg shaker-no problem.
Also, I expected the parents to help collect and distribute props (and they did!) and participate (about half did, some were too busy filming).

It's too soon to tell, but I can't help but wanting to do the happy dance over the idea of dropping themes for my storytimes. It occurred to me this fall, while I was writing up the winter storytime themes for our little in-system publicity newsletter thingy that I spend a great deal of time coming up with themes.
I worry:

That I do the themes too often (bears again?)
That the themes are offensive or hurtful to feelings in any way
(holidays? too gender biased?)

That, by the time the program rolls around that I NO LONGER want to do that theme. Maybe I found an awesome new book I can't share because it doesn't fit the theme, or maybe I'm just tired of it (I have been at this quite some time).

That the kids rarely CARE what the theme is. Yes, Captain America storytime sounds awesome. Enter the pressure to make that storytime just that: awesome. I can tell you that sometimes parents (and kids) confuse "awesome" program themes with paid events. For example, I…